cap. The process of stamping is repeated row by row, the printer changing cap as the prearranged design requires, until the cloth is completely covered with the wax design.
Experienced tukang cap are able to work with speed, at the same time applying even pressure to each stamp. They also take great care to match the components of the design exactly, the design of the badan meeting precisely the design of the kepala and border without any overlapping. The manual nature of the work—and the speed at which many of the artisans have to work, especially if they are paid for piecework—can, however, lead to overlapping secondary lines, blank spaces and blotches of wax splattering the cloth. Design elements applied earlier may be protected from subsequent stamping by the printer overlaying them with paper replicas of the reserved design.
Steps in the process of making batik cap. From above left: measuring the cloth; dipping the block into the hot wax; stamping the wax pattern on to the cloth using a cap; applying the dyes directly on the cloth with brushes; dipping the cloth in a dye vat; washing the cloth; boiling off the wax; hanging the cloth to dry.
Dyeing
After the initial waxing, the cloth is ready for the first dyeing in one of several wooden or concrete troughs that hold the dye baths. Unlike in the canting or hand-drawn method of batik, in which colours are painted directly on to the cloth with brushes, the cap method requires successive waxing and dipping in dye baths depending on the choice of colours in the design template. Single cloths may be submerged in the dye, swirled around and lifted out with a stick, but to enable the dyeing of several metres of cloth at one time for sale as yardage, a roller method is used to pull the cloth evenly through the dye bath as well as to support the weight of the wet fabric.
After the first immersion, the cloth is dried on a rack or line or spread on the ground outside the workshop, then waxed for a second time to save certain design elements before it is dyed again. The process is repeated depending on the choice of colours to be applied. The wax is then removed in a large metal wok-shaped container filled with boiling water. The hot, boiled cloth may also be slapped against a vertical concrete slab to break off any remaining particles of wax before it is finally washed in detergent and hung out to dry.
The process of waxing and dyeing and the resulting images can be changed by varying the choice and sequence of colours, by using the discharge method of removing colour with an acid bleach or by applying some colours by hand.
Motifs, Meanings and Colours
Regardless of the patterns and motifs observed on the earliest imported Javanese sarongs, the Malays have always been inclined towards motifs derived from the natural world—arabesques and curvilinear or angular foliated shapes modelled after their environment—and these are clearly exhibited in their handwoven kain songket and kain limar as well as in their woodcarving (panels and other architectural elements), metalware (goldwork, silverwork and brassware), weaponry (the keris sheath), embroidery (gold-thread tekatan), fibreware (baskets and mats) and earthenware (cooking pots and water jars). This inclination reflects the environment in which they worked—and continue to work—but it is also the result of generations of cross-cultural influence and the exchange of material goods as well as the Islamic preference for geometric and denaturalized stylization. As Arney says, ‘The Malay aesthetic, as for any people with such diverse experiences, must be a composite of historical events and surrounding environment.’ The shapes and forms, moreover, change with time and fluctuate in any given time; they are never stagnant. Malaysian batik, although considered a traditional Malay craft, is, in reality, less than a century old. The very fact that it is so recent frees it in many ways from stereotypical designs, allowing opportunity and freedom for innovation.
At the same time, the designs on early stamps ensure a certain amount of continuity of traditional patterns and motifs and the cultural values that are embedded in them. In a carefully designed batik cap sarong, as Mohamed Najib Ahmad Dawa points out in the En Bloc catalogue, ‘the motif is from the same source although it is placed in different parts of the scheme.’ He gives the example of a schematic arrangement illustrating the several phases in the growth of a flower: the pre-bud (seed) and bud in the pucuk rebung or bamboo shoot motif on the kepala (head) of the sarong; opening buds and entwining tendrils on the narrow borders encasing the kepala; and fully opened blossoms, leaves and stems on the badan (body). These, in turn, he says may symbolically represent the metamorphoses of a child into an adult.
Indonesian Influences
It is widely known among batik enthusiasts that Indonesian batik has a vast repertoire of well-documented geometric, figurative and background designs—some researchers estimate over 3,000—derived from natural and mythical sources, local folklore and the waves of foreign culture that enveloped the archipelago; the latter include motifs inspired by Indian patola cloths, Chinese textiles, ceramics and carvings, and European floral patterns. Among the most distinctive geometric or ceplokan designs are forms of flora, fauna and bird life standardized into repetitive, symmetrical shapes, diagonally slanted designs, groups of ovals arranged in fours, and patchwork and spear designs. Figurative or non-geometric designs, generically termed semen, include some of the most imaginative and ornamented batik designs inspired by Hindu, Buddhist and indigenous Javanese designs as well as European, Chinese and Indian sources. Placed against a background of swirling foliage, semen motifs are most apparent on hand-drawn Indonesian batik and frequently feature the mythical winged Hindu-Javanese Garuda, Chinese-inspired butterflies, phoenixes and peacocks, lions, mythical dragons and naga serpents and natural phenomena such as rocks, clouds, mountains and landscapes. Isen or background designs are simple, repetitive motifs, such as the Chinese-derived swastika or the Javanese fish-scale motif, which usually cover the whole surface of the cloth.
Because of the availability of imported Indonesian sarongs, it is understandable that Javanese styles, especially those from Lasem and Pekalongan on the north coast of Java, which were decorated with both a kepala and floral motifs, influenced the patterns and motifs on the first Malaysian sarongs, right up to the early 1950s. Indeed, Muslim traders on Java’s north coast encouraged the production of particular styles for Muslim consumers. Many Malay women favoured the Lasem style of sarong with its plain, cream-coloured background covered with a kepala featuring the pucuk rebung (bamboo shoot) motif, called tumpal in Indonesia, in which two rows of equilateral triangles containing blossoms and stems run down each side of the kepala with the points of the triangles facing each other. Applied on innumerable Malay art and craft objects, the pucuk rebung has been variously interpreted as a symbol of fertility because of its rapid growth or a modified form of the mythical tree of life. The pucuk rebung was also the most common decorative pattern on the kepala of the prestigious locally handwoven gold thread kain songket, and so it was an eminently familiar motif. The badan on either side of the kepala pucuk rebung was decorated with meandering vines and stylized plant forms.
This early twentieth-century sarong from Lasem on the north coast of Java, made for Chinese use, illustrates wax-stamped Javanese-style diagonal stripes, geometric patterns and triangular end borders
